Who
doesn’t love chocolate? Americans sure do. In fact, the average American
citizen eats over 11 pounds of chocolate each year. But there’s a downside to
this sweet treat beyond simply questionable ingredients.

Many
of us purchase our chocolate without thinking about who made it, and that’s a
problem, since a variety of large corporations have been accused of using child
slavery to give you your chocolate fix.

Last
September, a lawsuit was filed against a list of companies that includes
Hershey, Mars, and Nestle, claiming that the companies were tricking their
consumers into funding the child slave labor trade in West Africa.

It’s
been a cause for concern in the chocolate industry for the past 15 years. Cocoa
is the main ingredient in chocolate, and most of it is grown in West Africa,
with the two biggest producers being the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account
for about 60 percent of the global cocoa supply.

Many
companies within the chocolate industry rely almost exclusively on West Africa
for their cocoa supply, but most of the cocoa is produced on small farms by
farmers suffering from severe poverty. These extremes often result in child
labor. Back in 2001, the chocolate industry pledged to end the practices in
Ivory Coast and Ghana by 2005, but this deadline has repeatedly been pushed
back. Now, the hope is to fully eliminate it by 2020.

To
understand why this is so important, you need to look beyond the money and
beyond the chocolate. You need to become aware of what’s happening to these
children. Ranging from the ages of 11-16, and sometimes even younger, the
conditions of these child slaves prove grim, with children trapped in isolated
farms where they work for 80 to 100 hours every single week.

They
are often beaten with fists, belts, and whips as well, according to freed
children who spoke on the matter in the film Slavery: A Global Investigation.
“The beatings were a part of my life,” explained freed slave Aly Diabate.
“Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying
them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it
up again.”

Want
to avoid supporting child slavery? Steer clear of these six chocolate
companies:

Hershey

Mars

Nestle

ADM Cocoa

Godiva

Kraft

“At
the moment, no major chocolate company can guarantee their cocoa supply is not
tainted by child labor,” explains Elizabeth Jardim, director of consumer
advocacy at Green America, a non-profit that promotes ethical consumerism.

“However, most have launched sustainability programs that attempt to address
child labor in a variety of ways, largely thanks to consumer pressure.”

And
yet, despite the constant news on the severe subject, the number of children
working in the cocoa industry has increased by 51 percent from 2009 to 2014.

“They enjoy something I suffered to make; I worked hard for them but saw no
benefit. They are eating my flesh,” one freed boy explained.

Check
out this list of more socially conscious companies who have made it a priority
to steer clear of profiting off the suffering of child labor: